


Adhocracy

by chaosmanor



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-12
Updated: 2008-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:15:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adhocracy (noun); any form of organisation that cuts across normal bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adhocracy

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
> 
> This was originally written for the [twiml_zine](http://community.livejournal.com/twiml_zine/) project, which has finished, so I'm making the story available here.
> 
> Betaed by: well, I can tell by my notes that [](http://www.insanejournal.com/users/crimson_bride/profile)[**crimson_bride**](http://www.insanejournal.com/users/crimson_bride/) betaed, but it looks like the zine provided a beta too, and I'm pretty sure I asked [](http://www.insanejournal.com/users/mynxii/profile)[](http://www.insanejournal.com/users/mynxii/)**mynxii** to look it over.  
> 

The elevator was stainless-steel panelled and discreetly lit, with music playing so faintly it was almost subliminal. Oh, great; subliminal muzak. Viggo checked his appearance quickly in the steel. He didn’t look too rumpled, despite having come straight from the airport.

The elevator doors slid open. Viggo stepped out into a large, open plan office space and set down his laptop bag, suit bag and small carryon holdall.

The room was loud with the chatter of voices, with phones ringing and printers whirring, but one by one, phones were put down and conversations halted.

When the only sound was a fax machine squealing, Viggo said, “Could someone please stop that fax?”

The squeal halted. “Thanks. I’m Viggo Mortensen,” Viggo said to the room full of expectant faces.

Viggo heard the nervous titter in response to his name. He was known for taking over doomed projects, and fixing them, even if it meant that everyone hated him afterwards. That was fine; a little bit of reputation might sharpen the staff’s focus.

“I’m aware that things here haven’t been easy,” Viggo said. “And they probably won’t be easy now, but I’ll do everything I possibly can to get this project completed on time. Do I have a PA?”

A small round woman, bright and sparkly with an endearing smile, stepped forward. “I’m Louise, sir,” she said. “I was Mr. Townsend’s PA, so I guess I’m yours now.”

Viggo looked around at the curious faces, people peering around cubicles and over partitions. “I’ll be meeting with each and every one of you over the next few hours,” Viggo said. “Louise, perhaps you could show me to my office.”

“Yes, sir,” Louise said, and Viggo picked his bags back up and followed her down a corridor of cubicle walls to a collection of proper offices.

“You’re in here, Mr. Mortensen,” Louise said, holding open a panelled wood door and gesturing for him to enter.

It was a decent-sized office, with a huge desk, a couch and picture windows that looked out across the city.

“Stay, Louise,” Viggo said, dropping his bags and settling into the large leather chair behind the desk.

Stuart Townsend had left in a hurry. The desk still bore signs of occupation: papers and files, even a laptop.

Viggo waved at one of the other chairs, and Louise perched on the edge, producing a notepad from about her person somewhere. He glanced down; she was wearing sneakers, trying to tuck them under the chair out of sight. He approved of sneakers; people could move faster in them.

Viggo said, “First, please don’t call me ‘sir’. My name is Viggo. Second, I want to see every single person on the team this morning, at five-minute intervals. Please arrange that.”

“Yes, um, Viggo,” Louise said. “Anything else immediately?”

The carryall was beside the desk, and Viggo rummaged around in it and took out a stainless steel thermos flask. “Boiling water, please,” he said. “Constantly. And I believe the corporation has booked me a hotel room, but I have no idea where. Could you sort that out? And bring me the individual team Work Breakdown Structures too, five minutes before the first interview.”

“Yes, um, Viggo,” Louise said, and she scooped up the thermos and bolted out of the office.

Viggo leant back in the chair and closed his eyes briefly.

He’d read the damage control report on the plane, and things would be worse than the report said; they always were. The project was disastrously behind schedule, and morale had to be rock bottom, with an outsider brought in to take control, rather than one of the team being promoted, but Viggo could live with that. He got paid to.

The door opened, and Viggo opened his eyes. Louise put the filled thermos on the desk, and a sheaf of printouts.

“Five minutes,” Louise said. “I’ll send people in by alphabetical order, shall I?”

“Excellent,” Viggo said, sparing a glance away from the planned outcome sheets to nod approvingly. “Less sulking that way.”

Viggo had brought a gourd, a bombilla, and a container of maté in the carryall. He balanced the bombilla in the gourd and half filled the gourd with flakes, then slid boiling water from the flask down the pipe. He topped up the water, then sipped the bombilla while he skimmed the WBSs, trying to get a grasp on the actual processes the office followed.

The door opened again, and Viggo put aside the gourd and gestured at the chair in front of the desk. The young man Louise showed in was tall and slender, wearing jeans and a crumpled shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“Sit down. I’m Viggo.”

“Orlando Bloom,” the young man said. “I’m the software development team leader.”

Viggo took a moment to assess Orlando. He had a translucent quality to him, as though he was lit within, a presence so bright it almost burned to look at him.

Orlando studied him back, with a half-smile in his eyes. Viggo was missing something, but he had no idea what.

“Talk to me,” Viggo said. “Tell me what you and your team need to get this project launched on time.”

Orlando leant forward, elbows on his knees. “Overtime,” Orlando said. “We’ve all been working extra, and none of the team has had their overtime approved. I also need sole access to the system for a few hours a day, to do full compiles. You have to understand, this software is nowhere close to debugged.”

“Consider it arranged,” Viggo said, writing notes to himself on a yellow legal pad. “How close to completion is your team?”

“The core program runs, at least sort of,” Orlando said. “But not the peripherals. And there’s no supporting documentation yet either. I’ve not had time to even start on that.”

“You don’t have a dedicated technical writer?” Viggo asked.

“I asked for one to be hired,” Orlando said. “Months ago.”

“Find someone. Hire them on short-term contract,” Viggo said. “I’ll make the call to HR, get them to set it up. Do you need any more bodies, or is Brooks’ Law in effect?”

“I needed more staff a year ago,” Orlando said. “Too late now.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he remained silent during the pause Viggo gave him to speak.

“Come and see me again,” Viggo said. “Any time. The door’s always open, even when it’s closed. I’m here to throw money and expertise at problems.”

Orlando’s gaze was opaque. “Pity Stuart didn’t get those resources,” he said, standing up.

Viggo shook his head slightly and leant back in his chair. “I had no part in any of those decisions,” he said. “But I admire your loyalty.”

There were some challenges he wasn’t going to meet, and he wasn’t there to defend stupid upper-management decisions.

“Thanks,” Orlando said, and Viggo found that even after Orlando had left, and Louise was ushering in the next person, Orlando’s half-smile lingered.

* * *

Rain drummed steadily against the windows in Viggo’s office, muting the last of the daylight and the first of the sulphurous yellow streetlights of the city.

Louise said, “Excuse me,” startling Viggo, who had been buried in the Critical Path for the project, scrawling flow patterns across the pad of sketch paper on the desk.

“Yes?” Viggo asked, pen poised, part-way through a thought.

“I’m leaving now,” Louise said. “Would you like me to order you dinner before I go?”

“One moment,” Viggo said, holding his left hand up while he completed his scribble. “What’s the time?”

“It’s 6.30,” Louise said. “I could stay if you need me to, but I’d have to call someone about the children.”

“Go home,” Viggo said, sliding his chair back from the desk and stretching as he stood up. “I’ll order out for dinner.”

The main office wasn’t deserted when Viggo wandered out a moment later, hard behind Louise. Half-a-dozen VDUs were still on, and he could hear a printer clattering. People nodded to him, and one woman smiled.

He smiled back at her and said, “I’m ordering pizza. Do you want to find out what people want and phone an order in? And do you know if there’s anyone else from the project still here?”

“I’ve got a Leo’s menu,” she said. “I’ll find out what people want. And you might want to check the software workroom,” she added, pointing across the main office to a conference room.

Jo, that was her name. She was part of the accounting team, responsible for processing the invoices and actually paying them. If she did that, she could be trusted to order pizza.

“Thanks,” Viggo said. “I’ll have pepperoni and olives.”

The conference room door was slightly ajar, and Viggo pushed it open and looked in.

The room was filled with hardware, most of it on the central conference table, the lights were off and the room was lit by the flat glow of screens. Orlando and Jonathon, one of the other software engineers, were hunched in front of one of the screens, peering at lines of text.

“Go away,” Orlando said without looking away from the screen. “Close the door.”

Jonathon must have glanced over his shoulder because Viggo heard him say, “Fuck,” under his breath, and Orlando’s head jerked around as Jonathon fumbled for the mouse beside him.

“Oops,” Orlando said. “Sorry about that. Were you looking for someone?”

Viggo held up a company credit card. “Want some pizza? Jo’s taking orders, and I’m buying.”

“Free pizza!” Jonathon said, scooting his chair back from the worktable and leaping out of it. “We win!”

Jonathon bolted past Viggo, but Orlando followed more sedately, pausing in the doorway of the dark room.

“This hasn’t happened before,” he said, his eyes following Jonathon’s whooping progress around the maze of cubicles. “We always have to buy our own pizza. And he’s a bit excitable.”

Viggo had to smile at Jonathon’s elation. “Just imagine if I’d said he could have beer too.”

When Viggo glanced back, Orlando’s gaze was on Viggo’s face, not following Jonathon, and Viggo was back to the suspicion that he was missing something.

“We get free beer?” Orlando said hopefully.

“Not tonight,” Viggo said. “I’m not sure I’d cope with the excitement.”

* * *

The office was deserted when the yawning security guard let Viggo out of the elevator, but the lights were on and Viggo could hear a vacuum cleaner humming somewhere on the floor. It was early, about five in the morning; he relied on a few hours of peace and quiet first thing to get the detailed planning done.

He dropped his laptop onto the desk, emptied the previous day’s maté flakes out of his gourd and reloaded it. It wasn’t ideal work, coming in at the bottom of the CM graph, when morale was dead in the water, but it did mean that if he could implement a management plan where the team could see incremental successes, then things could only improve.

Over the next few hours, Viggo could hear people trickling into work, voices chattering and phones beginning to ring, but he resisted the urge to wander out and see who came in early. He didn’t give a damn what hours people worked, as long as they hit their WBS goals.

Louise was the first person to open his office door, and she didn’t speak, just put a plate holding a salad sandwich of some kind on his desk, along with a stack of message slips, then took his flask away.

The flask came back a minute later, refilled, and the office door closed again.

He ate the sandwich without paying it any attention.

Sometime mid-morning, his body complained loudly enough about sitting still for so long that Viggo abandoned work, at least temporarily.

The kind of work he did demanded that he wear a suit, but that didn’t mean he had to wear it all the time.

He undid his tie, then took his shirt off and hung it with his jacket. His shoes and socks went under the desk. There was a reason he always wore a plain white t-shirt under his business shirt.

The light filtering through the window was silvered by cloud, falling in a pool on the plush charcoal carpet, and he sat cross-legged in the light, casting a shadow.

It took time - breathe in for the count of four, hold for two, exhale for four, hold for two - to make the morning’s work leave him. When he was sure it had, with the noises from the main office sounding paradoxically both louder and further away, he lay back on the carpet and began to move himself through the patterns engrained into his body.

He sat back up, into Hero, then slid into Konasana, one hand behind him, one in front, lifting himself forward to his natural stretch.

He was distantly aware that the office door opened behind him, then closed again, just as he pressed the palms of his hands together and arranged his core, but he didn’t much mind who he kept waiting.

He put his palms onto the carpet, tipped his pelvis slightly, and slid forward across the floor. He felt something coiling in his belly, even with his abdomen fully stretched, a tickle of something new, but it didn’t want to be found yet, so he let go of the pose and lifted himself back upright and pulled his legs together.

A quick roll of his shoulders, and he jumped to his feet and padded barefoot across to the door.

Louise looked up when he opened it.

“Someone was looking for me?” Viggo asked her.

“Orlando,” Louise said. “He left you a message.”

Louise’s eyes widened, reminding Viggo that he was barefoot and wearing a t-shirt, but he just took the message slip from her and went back to his desk, leaving his door open.

‘Beer tonight. I’m buying,’ the note said, and it made Viggo smile.

Louise appeared in the doorway, looking uncertain. “Orlando might have his own agenda,” she said.

Viggo nodded, and Louise melted back to her desk while Viggo pulled his work shirt back on. Everyone always did have their own agenda. Orlando might be angling for a job with the placement agency Viggo worked for, or he might be trying to further his career path with his current employer. Or he might just have realised that Viggo was working his butt off in a city he was unfamiliar with, and would appreciate some company.

It was dark through the window, no rain this time, just a city that glowed yellow in streetlights, when Viggo shrugged his suit jacket back on and packed his laptop up.

The main office was mostly deserted, just Linda, from Logistics, bent over her keyboard, too engrossed in what Viggo could clearly recognise as a TPS report to look up, presumably prepping for the team meeting the next day.

The door to the software team room was ajar, and Viggo pushed it open.

The lights were on this time, and Jonathon was banging a keyboard frantically, Orlando leaning over his shoulder.

Orlando looked up and grinned at Viggo, and slapped Jonathon on the back.

“Looks good,” he said. “Set the compile running and go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jonathon grunted and didn’t look up from the screen.

In the elevator, while Orlando shrugged his shoulders into a leather jacket, Viggo said, “So where would you suggest?”

“Not the pub over the road,” Orlando said. “Don’t think I can stand to look at the same faces again, not at the moment.”

Orlando’s smile, sideways in the polished stainless steel, coincided with the muffled thud as the elevator reached the foyer, and Viggo’s belly lurched a little.

“My hotel’s around the corner,” Viggo said. “There’s a bar there.”

They walked out of the office block, into a crowded city street, people milling around in the chilled evening air, traffic roaring, horns blaring. It was a relief to step into the plush silence of the hotel lobby.

The bar was mostly empty, quiet apart from conversation and muted piano music, and Orlando said, “What are you drinking?”

Viggo said, “Single malt - Highland Park, straight up, thanks.”

He slid into a booth, shoving his laptop and briefcase onto the seat beside him, then leant back against the bench seat and closed his eyes.

“That bad?” Orlando asked, and Viggo caught a whiff of the Scotch.

Viggo stayed there, just for a moment longer, then made himself open his eyes again.

“Still jetlagged,” he said. “Tired. How are you holding up? I noticed the WBS from your team showed significant progress.”

“Ugh,” Orlando said. “I’m over it. Can’t wait for project completion, then I’m taking some leave.”

“Going somewhere good?” Viggo asked, picking up the glass Orlando had put in front of him, anticipating the rich, smooth, golden bliss.

“Somewhere, anywhere,” Orlando said. “Sorry about walking in on you today. Louise didn’t stop me, so I didn’t know you were doing yoga. Is that how you cope?”

The whisky was wet velvet in Viggo’s mouth, and he took a moment to appreciate it before replying. “I meant it when I said my office door was always open, even when it was closed. And, yes, yoga stops me from tying my body into a tense mess. What about you?”

Viggo loosened his tie, and Orlando leant back on the bench seat, his fingers toying with the label on his imported beer.

“I like to fuck. That’s what I do to unwind.”

A woman walked past them, shapely in a black velvet cocktail dress, and her eyes slid across both of them in the booth as she headed for the Ladies. She was a working girl, attractive and available. Viggo turned his attention back to Orlando.

“It’s been a while,” Viggo admitted.

Orlando shook his head, and he’d coloured in the subdued lighting of the bar. “Wrong bar for me,” he said. “Unless…”

Realisation burned down Viggo’s throat as if his whisky had turned to raw alcohol. Orlando’s agenda… his own misinformed assumptions…

Viggo felt something else apart from surprise: an illicit thrill that he hadn’t expected, like sneaking a glimpse at someone else’s porn collection.

“I’m heterosexual,” Viggo said. “I hadn’t...”

“Are you?” Orlando asked, and he lifted his beer and took a drink, then put it back down again. He leant forward, across the small table between them, and his smile was conspiratorial. “You see,” Orlando said, almost whispering, “I wouldn’t mind betting that you’re half hard at the idea.”

Viggo was blessed with an unflappable calm, that was why companies hired him as a project manager; nothing that happened ever ruffled him. But he was perilously close to experiencing a flap, half-panic running through him at the realisation Orlando was right, that he was getting turned on at the thought of Orlando with another man.

At the same time, part of him thought the whole situation was actually hilarious, and Viggo found himself struggling to suppress the laughter that was welling up in him.

Orlando slid out of the booth, shaking his head and chuckling under his breath.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Orlando said, and then he was gone, hands shoved in the pockets of his leather jacket, amusement in the set of his shoulders.

Viggo stayed where he was, whisky in his hands, for long enough that he had to wave away the working girl, even though her company might have done something about the burn in his body that Orlando had left behind.

If he wasn’t so tired, if the alarm wasn’t already set for four in the morning, it might actually have been enough to keep him awake.

* * *

Louise fluttered around the conference room, collecting together the abandoned agendas, TPS and WBS printouts, picking up pens and water glasses. Viggo wasn’t in a hurry to move; his ears were still ringing and it was going to take a Cobra and a shoulder stand to get his shoulders to unlock. He should do something about the four pages of scribbled notes he’d taken, too. He didn’t want to imagine how bad the meeting would have been if he hadn’t restricted everyone to just two minutes each.

There would have been blood on the carpet.

He glanced up, just as Louise left, and Orlando was standing in the doorway, shirt sleeves rolled up, shirt partly untucked.

“Come in,” Viggo said, waving Orlando towards him. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Just thought I should check that there’s no lasting, um, problems,” Orlando said.

Viggo indicated one of the empty chairs, and slid his own chair away from the conference table and propped his shoe-clad feet on the tabletop.

The light coming in through the conference room windows was pale, patchy sunlight, and Viggo tried to remember the last time he’d been outside for longer than a few minutes.

With Orlando so close, Viggo couldn’t forget what he’d dreamt the night before, or how he’d felt when he’d woken from the dream, heart pounding in his chest, last cadence of coming still making him groan.

Someone bustled into the room, apologised, then collected a bag from under the table, but Viggo didn’t move, and Orlando just waited, elbows on his knees, chin resting on his hands.

The person left, and Viggo let himself examine the options of what he might say, ran through the projections of what might happen. Risk management, strategic planning: it was what he did.

“May I talk this through?” he asked Orlando, and Orlando smiled and nodded, and a little bit of the tension eased out of Viggo’s shoulders.

He took his feet off the table, leant forward in his chair too. If anyone walked in, it would look like they were trying to work out one of the many issues that software engineering was struggling with.

But with Orlando sitting there, his eyes on Viggo’s, somehow all the words that had been rattling around Viggo’s head all day, reasons and outcomes, seemed completely irrelevant. Viggo was lonely, and something about Orlando made his teeth tingle and his toes flex.

They sat like that, Orlando’s smile slowly curling up the sides of his mouth, until his teeth gleamed and it felt like the tropical sun was burning through Viggo, not the anaemic autumn glow that was struggling through the tinted glass in the empty room.

“Fuck it,” Viggo said. “Let’s take this somewhere private.”

Orlando licked his bottom lip, and it might just have been the hottest thing Viggo had ever seen.

“If I don’t go back to work, I think Jonathon will cry,” Orlando said. “And by private, you mean somewhere other than your office, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Viggo said. “After work?”

Orlando nodded, and he reached out and curled one hand around Viggo’s wrist, over the material of his crisp shirt, his fingers pressing the cotton against the frangible skin of Viggo’s wrist, touching the tendons, setting fire to him.

There was a knock at the open door of the conference room, and when Viggo glanced up, Jonathon was hovering in the doorway, looking anxious.

After Orlando had gone, Viggo stayed where he was, seat swivelled around so he could watch the clouds slip across the fading sky. Eventually, Louise came to find him, maté gourd in one hand, phone in the other.

It was time to go back to work.

* * *

He was on the phone, again, scribbling notes on the yellow legal pad, when Orlando knocked on the doorframe of his office. Viggo gestured with the pen, wrote a brief burst of figures, then wound up his call.

Orlando waited while Viggo put his jacket on and packed up his laptop; then, showing far more thoughtfulness than Viggo had anticipated, he walked beside Viggo to the elevators, talking earnestly about the project.

They shared the elevator ride with the young girl who Viggo suspected actually ran the records management section, despite having two superiors, and it could have been any working day in any working office, except that Viggo felt like he was walking on ice, struggling to hold each step steady.

When they’d stepped out of the office block lobby, into the early evening clutter of people, the darkened sky spat chilled rain at them.

They wound up running for Viggo’s hotel, arriving damp and breathless, tumbling into the elevator there.

Viggo unlocked his room and held the door open for Orlando to walk through, then pushed the door shut behind them.

His laptop, briefcase and suit jacket got tossed onto the desk, but hands covered his own, arms reaching around from behind him, when he went to undo his tie.

“Let me,” Orlando said, and Viggo dropped his hands, closing his eyes, the warmth of Orlando’s body burning through Viggo’s shirt and t-shirt. “That’s better,” Orlando murmured, his breath tickling Viggo’s skin, his fingers touching Viggo’s neck as they undid the top button of his shirt.

Orlando’s fingers slid lower, and Viggo had to find some balance inside himself, just to keep his heart rate down as Orlando flicked button after button open.

The fingers slid inside his open shirt, smoothing over the cotton of his t-shirt, Orlando’s mouth pressed above the collar of Viggo’s shirt, against his skin, and there was no escaping the feeling of Orlando’s body right behind him, his legs close enough that his jeans brushed against Viggo’s trousers.

Viggo must have wobbled or something, because Orlando’s hand spread across his ribs, steadying him.

“Come and lie down,” Orlando murmured, his lips pressing briefly against Viggo’s ear, and it was all so erotically charged that if they didn’t move soon, Orlando might just have got the order right.

Viggo felt like he was in a daze, kicking his shoes off and clambering onto his antiseptic hotel-room bed, watching Orlando drop his leather jacket on the floor and sit on the edge of the bed to pull his boots off.

The mattress dipped, every sensation soaring as Orlando lay down beside Viggo, on his side. In the hermetically sealed room, the central heating hummed and the bar fridge coughed into life. The bedcover, deep blues and browns, was corrugated under Viggo’s fingertips. Then Orlando leant forward and touched his lips to Viggo’s.

That contact, more than any of the others, more even than the fingers curling around Viggo’s arm, drawing him closer, undid him, making him gasp and open his mouth.

He rolled onto his back, Orlando following him, not breaking the kiss, sucking on Viggo’s bottom lip, moving his mouth, finally kissing Viggo deeply, tongue and lips.

Orlando lifted his mouth off Viggo’s, breathing hard, and when Viggo opened his eyes, Orlando looked tentative and uncertain.

Viggo was too old and too lonely, and the feeling was too precious, for him to turn away. He lifted cautious fingers, touched Orlando’s lips, his cheek, then gripped his shoulder through his shirt and pulled him back down again.

Something inside him knew what to do, how to make his hands move to the buttons of Orlando’s shirt, how to slide his hand inside, over smooth skin, furrows of ribs and the flat pad of muscle on Orlando’s chest. He squeezed gently with his fingertips, and Orlando wrenched his mouth off, eyes closed, tongue swiping across his bottom lip.

Viggo was unbearably turned on, hovering between trepidation and heaven. He pinched again, squeezing fingers around the hard bump of Orlando’s nipple, and Orlando gave a kind of despairing groan and his eyes flew open.

This was the point of no return, and Viggo found his throat muscles had constricted and he couldn’t speak. Orlando’s hand slid down Viggo’s t-shirt, pulling the material loose from his trousers, then eased in underneath, his touch cool and gentle.

“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this,” Orlando whispered, and Viggo understood then, all of the half-smiles, the times he’d been aware Orlando was saying something he didn’t understand.

Orlando’s touch, sliding across his belly, ruffling his body hair, was soothing and just a little electric. Viggo concentrated on returning the caresses, letting himself feel the way Orlando’s ribs moved as he breathed, the way his heart thrummed faintly between his ribs, the way Orlando kissed him.

When Orlando’s fingers slid lower, resting over the buckle of Viggo’s belt, he lifted his lips briefly. “Is this what you want?” Orlando whispered, his mouth so close to Viggo’s the words were felt, not heard.

“Touch me,” Viggo said. Orlando’s fingers flicked his belt undone, pulling the leather strap loose, and Viggo had to close his eyes when the fingers drifted over his fly.

The top button came undone, and the fingers slid inside knowingly, finding the metal clasp and unclipping it. Then the rasp of the zip, matching the rough sound Viggo made in his throat.

Fuck, they’d barely touched, and he was so fucking wound up, so turned on, that he could barely breathe. Orlando’s breath hitched, the sound clear, and his mouth pressed against Viggo’s throat, teeth scraping across his skin, saliva slipping. Fingers slid inside Viggo’s trousers, across the fabric of his underwear, until the cotton pulled tighter around his cock.

Then fingers drifted across his cock, finding the damp patch, making Viggo painfully aware that more moisture was welling up, that he was so close to coming his brains out. He grabbed at Orlando, clutching at his back, his shoulders, his hip, and Orlando’s hand slid down the length of Viggo’s cock, pushing lower, so his hand cupped Viggo’s balls.

“Fuck, gonna come,” Viggo gasped.

His hands grabbed Orlando’s jeans, already sliding down around his hips, and pushed them lower, then scrabbled at the front of them, desperate to touch him too, dragging at buttons and cotton, until he found the warm length of Orlando’s cock, hard as stone, skin dragging across the flesh.

Orlando’s hand dived under the stretch of Viggo’s underwear, nails catching on skin, and his fingers curled around Viggo’s cock, sending bolts of fire through Viggo’s body.

The tickle at the base of Viggo’s belly caught the fire, and he was beyond wondering how he’d got to that place, beyond anything except yelling and thrashing as the flame spread through his entire body, starting at the soles of his feet and uncoiling up the length of his spine, so that he was coming with his whole fucking body.

Sliding down the other side, falling free, he was distantly aware that there was something hot and wet spreading across his hand and arm, soaking into his clothes, too, and he could hear Orlando groaning and gasping.

Orlando slumped down onto him, and Viggo managed to retrieve his arm and sling it around Orlando’s shoulder, pulling him closer. They were both still breathing hard, sounding like they’d run for miles, and Viggo’s heart was trying to make a break from his chest.

He might have come like that before, perhaps when he was a teenager; but if he had, he hadn’t appreciated it adequately at the time.

“Fuck,” Orlando said, his voice ragged. “And we didn’t actually manage to get undressed.”

When Viggo kissed Orlando’s brow, his lips were tingling from the reckless kissing. “Next time,” he said sleepily.

Orlando lifted his head up a little, propping himself on one elbow. “Do you want to do this again?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Viggo said, and his fingers found the back of Orlando’s neck, where hair clung damply to his skin. “Definitely.”

Orlando put his head back down again, hand stroking Viggo’s arm through his shirt, and Viggo closed his eyes, too relaxed to resist.

He didn’t mean to fall asleep, wasn’t sure that he had, but when Orlando lifted his weight off Viggo and moved, dipping the bed again, Viggo jerked wide awake.

“Sorry,” Orlando said, buttoning up his shirt and looking apologetic. “You were obviously out cold, so I thought I’d leave you to sleep.”

Orlando hitched his jeans up and did them up again, then tucked his shirt in and sat on the bed, putting his boots back on.

If Orlando had been a woman, Viggo would have known exactly what it would mean to offer a shower or a meal, but the expectations were murky here and he settled for rolling over and pressing a hand against Orlando’s back, through his shirt, finding the solid bumps of his vertebrae. “Tomorrow?” he asked.

Orlando turned and smiled at Viggo. “Yeah, tomorrow, after work.”

Viggo didn’t go back to sleep after the hotel room door had clicked shut behind Orlando. He dragged his body off the bed and stumbled into the shower, shedding soiled clothes to stand naked under the stream of hot water.

The hotel provided a thick plush bathrobe, so he pulled that on without drying himself and padded out into the bedroom.

Room service: a meal and a bottle of decent wine.

* * *

The alarm dragged Viggo out of a deep sleep, and he only just managed to find the switch to the bedside light, and then the alarm clock, before the phone rang with his wake-up call.

He didn’t dare stay in bed, he’d fall back asleep immediately, but he didn’t really wake up until he hit the shower, eyes blinking in the bright bathroom lights.

His body remembered before his brain; his lips stung under the shower, his cock was achingly hard, and touching himself reminded him that something had happened to him, something that made him smile, even over the fatigue toxins buzzing around his body.

He wasn’t going to jerk off in the shower, not at 4.30 in the morning and before he’d had any coffee or maté. He managed not to, even if his fingers lingered too long, touching behind his balls, sparking a sudden fantasy about what it would be like to be really touched by another man.

Coffee, made with the percolator the hotel was kind enough to provide, then he stretched himself carefully through the Sun Salutation.

The suit he’d worn the day before was definitely out of action, something that was obvious when Viggo picked up the trousers from the bathroom floor, where he’d dropped them the night before. “You and me both, Bill Clinton,” he muttered, digging out a hotel dry-cleaning bag and stuffing the trousers into it.

Dressed in his other suit, laptop in hand, he paused at the night concierge’s desk on the way out of the foyer.

Concierges were useful people, always ready with the offer of a reputable escort service, so Viggo was sure the yawning night concierge was the right person to help him.

“Yes, Mr. Mortensen?” the concierge asked. “Would you like me to call you a cab, sir?”

Viggo took a bill out of his wallet. “Could you please see that there’re condoms and water-based lube in my room?” he said, pushing the bill across the desk. It was far too much, of course, but he wasn’t going to have a chance to drop into a pharmacy himself, and it didn’t seem like something he could ask Louise to do, even if he tipped her.

The concierge pocketed the bill discreetly. “Of course, sir. There’ll be a supply in your bedside drawer by midday.”

“Thanks.” The sliding doors whooshed open, and Viggo headed out, into the sleeping city. He felt fucking fantastic, caffeine coursing through his veins, anticipation making him almost jump out of his skin. If this was what being with another man felt like, he should have done it years ago.

The night security guard opened the doors of the office lobby when Viggo rapped on the locked glass, and led him across to the elevators, keys in hand.

Of course, it was Orlando that made him feel this way. It couldn’t have been anyone else. It had to be him.

The lights were on when the security guard let Viggo out of the elevator, but the whole floor was in silence. He was late; he’d missed the cleaner. He’d be lucky to get three uninterrupted hours of work done before the rest of the staff arrived.

* * *

Louise put a wide-mouthed thermos of something on the desk beside Viggo’s elbow, spoon balanced across the top, and whisked his empty hot-water flask away, returning a moment later with hot water for him.

He looked up from unscrewing the lid and sniffing the contents.

“Thank you, this smells great,” he said, and she grinned back at him.

“Potato, bacon and leek,” she said. “Thought you’d appreciate something homemade.”

“I do. Thank you so much,” Viggo said. He pushed his chair back a little from the desk, topped up the gourd with the fresh hot water, and picked up the spoon.

Louise put a stack of message slips on the desk and disappeared back to her own work station. The door was ajar, and Viggo could hear the rise and fall of voices from the main office, punctuated by phones ringing and the elevator doors pinging.

He ate the soup, enjoying each mouthful. It wasn’t just that the soup was good and he hadn’t eaten that morning. There was also the idea that somewhere nearby, Orlando would be taking off his leather jacket, pushing his shirt sleeves up and starting work.

Mid-morning, Viggo made his way out into the main office space, drawn by the steadily rising noise, a building hubbub of voices, interspersed with outbreaks of shouting.

Jo, head bent over beneath what looked suspiciously like a new haircut, looked up when Viggo leant over her cubicle.

“What’s happening?” Viggo asked her. He’d seen morale swing fast before, but three days might be a record.

Jo blushed and glanced over at the open door of the software team room. “Um, Jonathon and Orlando think they’re about to do a clean compile, sir,” she said.

Lipstick. Jo was wearing lipstick, which Viggo was sure she hadn’t been two days before.

Jo smiled, and Viggo began to suspect he wasn’t the only person having a good day.

Viggo took out his wallet and retrieved the company credit card, and went back to Louise’s desk. “Think you can arrange coffee and cake for everyone?” he asked.

He left Louise ordering cakes, and made his way across to the software team room.

The small knot of people in the open doorway parted for him, letting him look into the room.

He could see a bunch of people bent over two screens, Jonathon visible in the middle, typing so fast his hands were a blur.

Orlando glanced up, and Viggo had a moment of glorious warmth, just from the smile of complicity on his face, and he waved Viggo over.

“Yes!” Jonathon shouted, and when Viggo peered over the cluster of heads, he could see screens of error messages.

“What is it?” he asked, and the young man whose shoulder he was peering over glanced at him.

“It’s the output from a full compile,” he explained. “Jon is going to run it again, with the graphics on. Watch: this is further than it’s ever been debugged before.”

One of the screens froze, and everyone craned forward, peering at the screen. Orlando said, “It’s the last loop. Jon, go back to the stack, have a look at where we put that patch in.”

Tension trembled in the room, and the screen showed raw code. “There?” Jonathon asked. “Oh, fuck, I can see it.”

He typed, keys clattering loudly, and people murmured, a mutter of words that Viggo didn’t have to understand.

“Here goes,” Jonathon said, hitting ‘enter’, and the screen went black, then filled with error messages.

Twice more the screen jammed, and the software was tinkered with, and the screens restarted.

Then the screens went blank, plain black with the cursor flashing persistently, and people hugged and shouted.

Jonathon just put his head forward, onto the keyboard, and stayed there, Orlando patting his back.

Cheering spread through the big office, and Jonathon picked his head back up and hit some keys.

“First time,” Jonathon said, and the company logo filled the screen, then the log-in page for the software appeared, all sleek and glossy.

Viggo stayed where he was, nodding approvingly, watching as Jonathon ran through the database, each screen loading smoothly, all of the pull-down menus working, the whole package glitch-free.

“That’s it,” Jonathon said, pushing his chair away from the table, into the crowd of people behind him. “It’s done.”

“Time to idiot proof it,” Orlando said, standing up straight, stretching his arms over his head and crunching his neck. “Everyone, download it off the system, try and break it.”

Over the background hubbub, Viggo said, “Is that how you test stuff? Don’t you have proper testers and focus groups?”

Orlando stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and grinned at Viggo. “You don’t know these people, do you? When it comes to software-breaking, no one does it better.”

Viggo had to grin back. Orlando might be right, and besides, Viggo had done the Critical Path for the whole project, and there wasn’t a second to spare, certainly no time to spend in testing. Was it a problem? He’d been hired to get the product ready for launch, not to do it perfectly; and he was too damned happy to worry about anything, not when Orlando was leaning forward over the keyboards, the ridge of his spine shaping the back of his shirt, making Viggo want to touch him, right then.

* * *

Viggo was moderately drunk, he knew that, drunk enough that he had to steady himself on the door of the pub for a moment, before someone behind him bumped into him, sending him out into the wet and cold of the evening.

The software team were still in the pub, settling in for a night of it, but he’d resisted the temptation to crowd into the booth with them, even if the sight of a delighted Jonathon with his arm around Jo’s shoulders was just about the sweetest thing ever.

Orlando knew where he was staying, and he’d turn up later, hopefully, but Viggo understood about what it took to get a team through to a successful outcome; he wasn’t the only person with responsibilities.

Didn’t mean that when he’d closed his hotel room door and taken off his jacket, he wasn’t a just a mite frustrated.

When Viggo checked, he found a paper bag from a pharmacy in the bedside drawer, and he sat on the edge of the bed, the bag in his hands. There was a world of sexual etiquette he had no idea about. He didn’t know whether or not he would be the receptive partner, didn’t know how to read any of the social cues that might have told him what Orlando preferred, didn’t even know what his own preferences might be.

Sitting blankly, wondering, wasn’t actually going to tell him anything, including whether he should perform some kind of ablutions, so he took the condoms and lube out of the bag and put them back in the drawer. He’d shower, and assume that Orlando - who had been so achingly gentle the night before - would guide him.

The knock on the door came before he’d finished dressing after the shower, and he opened the door to Orlando.

“I approve,” Orlando said, corners of his eyes crinkling as he took in Viggo’s jeans, damp hair and bare chest, and he flicked the ‘do not disturb sign’ on the door across.

Inside the room, Orlando tossed his leather jacket onto the desk, then draped his arms around Viggo’s shoulders.

Orlando tasted of lager and smelt of rain, warm to touch, kissing back with a fervour that made Viggo’s head spin, finally wrenching his mouth away and taking a shuddering breath in.

“Wanted to do that all day,” Orlando said, his hands splayed across Viggo’s bare chest.

“Did you?” Viggo asked, and he could feel he was smiling. He didn’t know how much of what he was feeling was showing on his face, just knew he couldn’t hide it from himself.

“Don’t know what your policy is on wanking on company time,” Orlando said, and Viggo touched his cheek, traced a fingertip across his lips. “But I had to have some quality alone time this afternoon.”

“Good management practice would indicate jerking off probably doesn’t contribute to employee efficiency, except in very specialised workplaces. However, I think next time you should seek closer supervision from me on this matter.”

Orlando laughed, and a matching joy rose through Viggo, making him laugh too as his fingers began to unbutton Orlando’s shirt.

“Would you have watched me wank?” Orlando asked, and Viggo smoothed a hand across Orlando’s chest, under his shirt, finding the skin he’d touched the night before.

“I would have,” Viggo said. “Would have come too, just from watching.”

Orlando’s fingers pulled on the fly of Viggo’s jeans, freeing the button, sliding the zip down, and it was a relief to have the constriction over his cock eased.

“Tease,” Orlando said, and Viggo got the last button of Orlando’s shirt undone and pushed the cotton off his shoulders.

“It’s not teasing if we’re going to follow through,” Viggo murmured, his mouth against Orlando’s, hands spread across Orlando’s back, pressing their bodies together.

The feel of Orlando’s hand insinuating itself into Viggo’s jeans was delicious, fingertips pressing against his cock, then wrapping themselves around the thickness and pulling it free from Viggo’s jeans.

“Eager?” Orlando asked, chuckling, mouth so close to Viggo’s they might as well be kissing.

“Not all of us got off at work,” Viggo said, and Orlando’s hand tightened and slid, stroking him.

Orlando was hard too, when Viggo got his jeans undone and his hands inside them, and the thought of Orlando jerking off at work, touching himself, made Viggo’s mouth wet.

“Bed?” Orlando asked, and however good it was, standing there and touching, lying down and not having to trust his precarious knees appealed to Viggo.

With his jeans already around his knees, all it took was a couple of flicks of his feet and Viggo was naked. He had to let go of Orlando to haul the coverlet off the bed, exposing the crisp sheets and plush blanket, which he scrambled across the bed to pull back.

Viggo flopped onto the bed, glancing back at Orlando, who had been bent over, taking his boots off, before Viggo made his inelegant dive.

He was still there, crouched at the end of the bed, frozen in place, a look of intense lust on his face, his eyes glued to Viggo’s body.

That look, and the realisation that Viggo had just given Orlando a good, long look at his ass, were a potent combination. Viggo was not a reticent man, not with the kind of work he did, and just because he wasn’t in control right at that moment, didn’t mean he couldn’t experiment a little.

He touched his own cock, spread his legs slightly and ran his fingertips over his balls, then back up to squeeze the head of his cock.

“You could watch me,” Viggo murmured. “Or you could get on the bed too.”

Orlando grinned and pushed himself upright, levering off the edge of the bed. He was smooth-skinned, flat-bellied and lean, with thick dark pubic hair, cock flushed deep red, rock-hard and swaying a little as he clambered onto the bed.

“I’m planning on touching, too,” Orlando said, lying down beside Viggo, sliding a hand across Viggo’s thigh. “Touching you a lot.”

Viggo’s pulse had taken off and adrenaline was pouring through his system, so that the hand on Orlando’s hip had a fine tremor.

“Hey,” Orlando said, touching Viggo’s cheek, leaning forward to kiss his neck. “No rush here.”

“There is,” Viggo said, as Orlando bit at his neck, teeth dragging across the stubble there. “It’s a matter of some urgency.”

Orlando’s body pressed up against Viggo’s - full contact, skin to skin, his cock nudging against Viggo’s hip - and his mouth slid along Viggo’s jaw, then up to his mouth.

Kissing like that, grinding together, made Viggo groan, and his belly fill with lust. He needed something, and quickly, to stop him from thinking and make him feel.

Orlando moaned, and his cock bumped against Viggo’s. “We need to talk,” Orlando murmured.

“Talk…?” Viggo asked, and Orlando pushed Viggo onto his back, sliding over to sprawl across him.

“Yeah,” Orlando said. “What do you want?”

“To feel you come,” Viggo said, and he had to smile because Orlando was smiling at him, so close that Viggo could feel every breath he took. “To come too. I hadn’t thought much further than that. What about you?”

“You see,” Orlando said, “I’ve got the benefit of having spent the past twelve years fucking men, so I’m kind of more focused than that. I want to find out how flexible you really are; and some time during this evening, I really want to fuck you.”

The reality of what Orlando meant was sliding against Viggo’s belly, right at that moment, hard and urgent, and Viggo could feel the fluid leaking from it.

“Tell me what it will feel like,” Viggo said.

“Got some lube?” Orlando asked. “I’d rather show you.”

“The drawer,” Viggo said, and Orlando clambered off him and reached across to open the drawer beside the bed. “Oh look,” Orlando said, chuckling. “This is the kind of hotel that provides lube.”

Viggo laughed, and Orlando grinned at him. “Close your eyes,” Orlando said. “Concentrate on what you’re feeling.”

Viggo closed his eyes and relaxed back into the pillows. “Turned on,” he said. “Frustrated and somewhat in awe.”

A click of plastic, then a moment later, something cool and wet slipped down Viggo’s cock, making him gasp.

A few strokes on his cock, enough to make him rock his hips and moan, then Orlando said, “Want me to touch you?”

If Viggo had been feeling pedantic, he would have pointed out that Orlando already was touching him. But Orlando’s tongue was dancing around Viggo’s nipple, and his hand slipped between Viggo’s thighs, guiding them apart.

Viggo drew his knees up, spreading his legs wide, and he heard Orlando’s breath catch. Then Orlando’s hand settled on the inside of his thigh, on smooth, hairless skin, and slid higher.

“Oh God,” Viggo murmured, at the first touch of Orlando’s fingers behind his balls, pressing gently against his skin. Then Orlando’s mouth slid down until his lips wrapped around the end of Viggo’s cock.

“Wait for me,” Orlando said, breaking the contact for a moment, lifting hand and lips, and then Viggo heard a faint squelch.

Orlando’s mouth slipped down the length of Viggo’s cock, sinfully hot and wet, and Viggo wasn’t sure he’d be able to wait, no matter what Orlando asked.

Fingers dragged across his asshole, slippery and teasing, and it was just like being touched anywhere else, except different, more electric, and combined with the lazy lick and suck of Orlando’s mouth, it just made Viggo even harder.

One fingertip eased in, and Viggo had to remind himself that he wanted this and that Orlando knew what he was doing, because it was suddenly awkward - or he was suddenly awkward, perhaps.

Orlando’s tongue stopped lapping at the tip of Viggo’s cock, and he said, “Can you relax for me?”

“Sorry,” Viggo said, and Orlando lifted his head, the solemnity of his eyes belying the indecency of saliva smearing across his chin from his bottom lip.

“Don’t apologise,” Orlando said. “Just let go for me, alright?”

The edge on Orlando’s voice made Viggo’s cock jerk in Orlando’s hand, and Viggo - hopelessly out of his depth - was so turned on by what was happening that he was already on the verge of coming.

“Relax,” Orlando repeated, and Viggo closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the hotel pillow. He would do what he did during tense meetings and turbulent flights: run mentally through his favourite yoga moves, letting the accrued physical memories activated by the images take the tension from his muscles and reduce his heart rate.

“That’s better,” Orlando said, and the fingertip slid inside Viggo, wet and sharp and hard.

The intimacy of the touch shocked Viggo, to have someone touching him there, the finger seesawing in him; then Orlando’s mouth was back on Viggo’s cock, and the combination made Viggo groan.

He was going to come, and soon, because no matter how odd it was to have someone’s finger in his ass, his body was responding, reacting to the pressure, so that he rocked his hips, pushing more of his cock into Orlando’s mouth.

The feelings were coming in waves, as Orlando’s finger moved, making Viggo sweat and moan, drawing his knees up higher, too caught up in the moment to worry about how he should be moving.

Orlando’s mouth left Viggo’s cock, his saliva cooling on Viggo’s overheated flesh, and his mouth pressed briefly against Viggo’s.

“You were made for this,” Orlando whispered. “Made to be touched like this. Can you wait to come?”

“Think so,” Viggo said, opening his eyes, to see Orlando gazing at his face, so close and so beautiful.

The moment hung between them, and Viggo felt connected to Orlando, because their lives had touched for a reason.

Orlando’s solemnity lifted as he smiled. “Give me a moment, beautiful,” he whispered. His finger slipped out of Viggo’s body and Orlando leaned across the bed, reaching for the condoms.

Watching another man put a condom on, smear of lube on the head of his cock, latex rolled down his length, coating of lube over that, was disconcerting, at least until Orlando lifted his eyes and met Viggo’s gaze.

Orlando settled Viggo on his side, top leg drawn up, and the feel of his body against Viggo’s spine made Viggo close his eyes and press his face into the pillow, hands full of bedding.

Fingers touched his ass again, circling and pushing, and he didn’t need to be told to relax. It took an effort of will to let go that time, but when he did, Orlando kissed his shoulder and the fingers were gone.

The tip of Orlando’s cock was softer than his fingers, bumping gently against Viggo’s ass, and Viggo could feel Orlando’s knuckles colliding with his sacrum, digging into his buttock. Then Viggo felt a startling moment of pressure, making him hang onto his breathing; controlling the exhalation, four beats, pause for two, then breathe in for four.

Orlando swore under his breath, and his fingers dug into Viggo’s flesh.

The feeling was too much; Viggo’s body didn’t know what to do with the sensations. He had no frame of reference, no plan, was overwhelmed by the stretching and stinging, and he wasn’t sure he could do this, no matter how much he wanted to.

The pushing halted, and Orlando’s hand stroked Viggo’s hip.

“Take your time,” Orlando said. “Wait for it to stop.”

Viggo breathed through one full cycle, then another, and something happened inside him; something changed, or he worked out how to feel, so that instead of struggling with an intrusion, he was gasping as heat spread through his groin, tightening his balls and stiffening his cock.

“Is that good?” Orlando murmured, moving his hips slowly, sending waves of fire rolling through Viggo’s body, making the bed creak faintly.

Answering wasn’t possible. Viggo buried his face further into the pillow, almost embarrassed by his responses, and began to move his hips too, rocking back, one hand shoved under himself to grasp his painfully hard cock.

He couldn’t stop himself from groaning as the heat inside him grew and the slap of their bodies echoed in the hotel room. Orlando grunted behind him, guttural and raw, and that was how it felt, like Viggo was stripped bare, back to his primal self.

Each thrust was harder than the one before, harder and quicker, so that it hurt. But alongside the hurt was pleasure, making Viggo cry out each time, his cock squeezed tight in his hand, without even enough coordination to stroke himself properly, just letting Orlando take him along.

Orlando yelled and thrashed behind Viggo, his sweat slicking Viggo’s back, hands and teeth on Viggo’s skin, cock like steel inside him, so that he felt every fucking pulse of Orlando coming, every jab.

Orlando dragged his cock out of Viggo, then pushed fingertips behind Viggo’s balls, digging in, and Viggo found his hands would move, that he could let go, back hunched over, come coating his belly and hands, sobbing and moaning through an orgasm that blinded him.

Coming the night before had been a pale shadow of how Viggo felt this time, his body was completely exhausted and limp, letting Orlando roll him onto his back unresistingly.

“Hey there,” Orlando said, his voice as gentle as his hands. “You alright?”

Viggo felt anaesthetised, so tired his eyes would barely open, his arm numb as he draped it around Orlando’s neck, drawing him closer. “Hmm,” he murmured. Was he alright?

He was more than alright; he felt peaceful and content, a state he possibly hadn’t achieved in years.

Orlando kissed Viggo’s forehead and settled his head on Viggo’s shoulder, an arm slung across Viggo securely after reaching up to the bed head to dim the lights in the room. “Go to sleep,” Orlando said. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Yes, stay,” Viggo said, his eyes already closed again.

Orlando’s lips felt like a benediction, pressing against his forehead.

* * *

The alarm rang, jolting Viggo awake in the pitch darkness, and he’d barely managed to switch the light beside the bed on before the phone rang with his wake-up call.

He sat there for a moment, after putting the phone down, waiting for his brain to wake up, blinking and rubbing his face. The covers beside him heaved and Orlando peered up at him.

“Oh God, I’m dying,” Orlando moaned. “It can’t be morning yet.”

The dried come on Viggo’s belly flaked as he rubbed at it, a sure indication that he was actually awake. His imagination wouldn’t have added that kind of detail.

“It’s just after four,” Viggo said, and it was difficult to meet Orlando’s gaze.

“Four!” Orlando squeaked, and his hand clung onto Viggo’s thigh under the bedding. “Please, make it stop.”

Orlando’s hand tugged Viggo back under the covers, and Viggo clambered back under, into the warmth. “Do you have to go to work so early? On a Saturday?” Orlando asked, winding his arms around Viggo.

“I need to work for a few hours,” Viggo said. “Then perhaps you could show me around the city.”

“Rather show you around my bed,” Orlando said.

“That too,” Viggo said, kissing Orlando’s forehead. “Go back to sleep. I have to shower.”

The heat of the shower water made Viggo aware of the sting in his ass and the ache in his thighs. He touched himself gently, more out of curiosity than anything else, and he couldn’t feel a difference apart from residual lube and mild skin irritation. Something so momentous, so life altering, should leave some kind of mark.

The exhaust fan hummed loudly, and the door was closed, so Viggo tried out saying the words. “I’m queer,” he told the soap. “I’ve been fucked by a man. And I... ” He had to stop then; he wasn’t sure he could even tell a bar of soap exactly how intense it had been.

The soap wasn’t interested, neither was the towel, but he found a certain solidity in the words, a way to understand what he’d felt the night before.

Orlando was asleep again, sprawled on his back with the covers pushed down to his waist, when Viggo padded out of the bathroom to find his clean clothes.

He forwent his morning stretches, and left Orlando asleep. Maybe in an empty office, he would find some words that explained how he felt that morning, too.

* * *

The work wasn’t onerous, just tweaking the Critical Path and having a look ahead for the coming week, and the floor was deserted, so Viggo put music on and took his shoes off. Each time he glanced up from the screen, the clouds outside were brighter, lit from behind by a rising sun.

When he peered out of his office window, down onto the morning city, the streets shone with rain, but he saw nothing bleak about the view. The city was washed clean, the tired grime of the working week no longer streaking its buildings, so that it glowed and glistened in the clouded sunshine.

His office door squeaked slightly as it opened, and Viggo turned his head to find Orlando, wearing one of Viggo’s t-shirts under his leather jacket, rain dripping from the tufts of his hair, standing in the doorway holding two cups of takeaway coffee.

“Had no idea how you drink your coffee,” Orlando said, balancing one of the cups on Viggo’s desk, so it nestled amongst the snowdrift of papers. “Figured a latte was safest.”

Orlando put a small bundle of sugar sachets on top of the cup, and Viggo left the rain and the city to stand beside Orlando. “Latte is good,” Viggo said, and his voice sounded strange, as though he hadn’t used it for days.

Viggo could hear the clatter of other people in the main office, voices and a printer, so he didn’t touch Orlando. “Thank you,” he said.

“I’m going to kick some error message butt,” Orlando said. “Come and get me when you’re done here.”

“For lunch?” Viggo asked, because he knew he hadn’t eaten that morning, and he was pretty sure neither of them had eaten the night before..

“Lunch would be good,” Orlando said, and Viggo wanted to touch his eyebrows, his cheeks, bury his face against Orlando’s neck, breathe in the scent of his skin again.

He stayed there, beside the empty space where Orlando had been, until the smell of the coffee called him back to his desk.

* * *

They walked out of the office block foyer, onto a city street that shone with reflected sunshine, into bustling crowds, and Viggo took Orlando’s hand. “Where would you like to go?” Orlando asked, squeezing Viggo’s hand, and guiding them both out of the flow of pedestrians, to stand beside the rose limestone wall of a bank.

“Let’s eat,” Viggo said.

They sat on stools in a café, close enough their knees jostled, wolfing down fresh bread, olive oil for dipping, and slabs of cheese so ripe it almost growled. Orlando smiled at Viggo around a bite of bread, and said indistinctly, “How are you?”

“I feel fucking fantastic,” Viggo said, dunking a chunk of bread into the bowl of oil.

“You were fucking fantastic,” Orlando said, leaning forward over the wobbly table of food. “Last night was unbelievably good.”

“Was it?” Viggo asked, and Orlando’s slightly oily hand closed over his.

“It was unbelievable; you were wild,” Orlando said, his voice not really lowered, and Viggo didn’t care if everyone else in a walk-in cupboard of a café heard, not when Orlando’s eyes were wide open and gleaming at him, and they were co-conspirators in the biggest fucking adventure of Viggo’s life.

The bread and cheese were abandoned, and Viggo let Orlando guide him through the maze of streets and laneways, where the gutters gurgled with rain and the trams rattled and hissed on the road surfaces. Viggo didn’t know the city, and almost immediately lost track of where they were. Orlando stopped at a butcher and bought meat wrapped in white paper. Vegetables went into brown paper bags, as did the bottle of Italian red wine that Viggo suspected would be undrinkable.

“We’ll need food later,” Orlando had said, but Viggo doubted that, especially when the rain started again, dripping from each coil of Orlando’s hair, tracing rivulets down his leather jacket, seeping through the shoulders of Viggo’s coat. Not food, just somewhere dry and private.

Orlando’s apartment, up two flights of creaking stairs, was warm, with sash windows looking out over the church and park opposite. Viggo put the sacks of groceries he’d been carrying down on the table, amongst newspapers and used plates, and looked around the room approvingly. Large, deeply cushioned couch, long workbench of laptops and PCs in various states of undress, rows of geraniums on windowsills.

“Must look like a dump to you,” Orlando said, pushing open the only internal door to show a small bedroom almost entirely filled with bed. “Bet you live in some sleek, chrome apartment, tastefully decorated and completely free of clutter.”

The bed was covered with a thick comforter, dark blue and white stripes, which Orlando hauled off the bed and tossed onto the floor, revealing rumpled white sheets and a pile of pillows.

“Actually, I live in a craftsman’s bungalow in Venice Beach,” Viggo said, while Orlando pulled the curtains closed. “I’ve been fixing it up for years, but you can’t tell that. Think dry rot and experimental plumbing.”

Orlando took Viggo’s hands in his own and turned them over, examining the palms. “That explains the calluses,” he said. “I assumed they were from lifting weights.”

“Before I flew here, I spent a week on my knees, planing and sanding floorboards,” Viggo said.

Orlando lifted Viggo’s hand and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his palm. “Come to bed,” he said.

In the muted light, skin prickling in the cool bedroom air, they moved slowly, and Viggo lingered over each touch, each taste, so that his body was singing when he slid into Orlando, catching Orlando’s gasps with his mouth, moving carefully, letting the heat build between them.

That time, Viggo watched Orlando’s face, the way Orlando tipped his head back and opened his mouth as he came.

* * *

The smell of frying onions woke Viggo. He found the bathroom, through what looked like the door to a built-in closet, and a bathrobe.

The world outside Orlando’s apartment was dark, the traffic a distant roar, and Orlando looked up from stirring the contents of the frying pan.

“Better for some sleep?” Orlando asked, and Viggo slid his arms around Orlando’s waist from behind and hugged him.

“Smells good,” Viggo said, nuzzling the back of Orlando’s neck, so that he could taste the skin above the edge of Orlando’s sweater.

“Worked up an appetite?” Orlando said, putting the spoon down and turning around inside Viggo’s embrace.

“I’m starving,” Viggo said, before he kissed Orlando.

* * *

The shower clicked off, and a minute later, damp hands touched Viggo’s shoulders, where he sat at the hotel-room desk with his laptop, then a naked and still wet Orlando flopped down onto the bed.

Viggo looked across at Orlando speculatively. “How’d you feel about a redundancy package?” he asked.

“Am I going to be fired?” Orlando asked, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on one elbow.

“Depends,” Viggo said, waving a hand at his laptop. “Standard procedure is that I recommend who should be let go, and who should be moved to other projects at completion. Had you thought of taking a retrenchment package and moving on?” Viggo stood up from the chair and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “Because if you wanted a change, I’d be happy to pull some strings to get you a job with the agency I work for.”

Orlando reached across the bedding and touched Viggo’s hand. “If I was interested…?” Orlando asked.

“Then I’d love to see you, when we’re both in the same city,” Viggo said. “If you wanted that too. If you don’t, then I can still line you up work.”

Orlando sat up, arms around his knees. “And if I wanted to see you all the time?”

“How do you feel about experimental plumbing?” Viggo said, smiling widely, aware that his eyelashes were sticking a little. “I’ve got this house that’s big enough for both of us, and a management-and-software-engineering team is eminently employable.”

“I’ll take the retrenchment package, and the dodgy plumbing,” Orlando said, and Viggo took hold of one of Orlando’s hands and held it in his own.

“The plumbing needs replacing anyway,” he said. “And you can fill the yard with geraniums if you like.”

* * *

It was raining in LA, too, when the taxi pulled up outside Viggo’s little house, but that didn’t stop Orlando from diving out of the car and through the gate, crashing through the waist-high weeds, then spinning back to wrap his arms around Viggo.

“It’s gorgeous!” he said, letting go of Viggo long enough for Viggo to pay the driver and find his house keys.

The front door opened onto a room that was empty apart from trestles, ladders, woodworking tools and dust, but Orlando just beamed at Viggo and opened the door to the kitchen.

“Just gorgeous!” he said, and Viggo was glad he’d already replaced the laminated countertops with granite and repanelled the walls.

The bedroom, with Viggo’s antique four-poster bed, had never looked so good as it did now, when Orlando threw himself across the blankets, laughing, holding his hands out to Viggo.

“Jet-lagged?” Viggo asked, letting Orlando pull him down onto the bed.

“Not one bit,” Orlando said, and Viggo could see he was stifling a yawn.

“Good,” Viggo said, “because it’s your turn to put your feet behind your neck.”


End file.
